Method of and system for displaying mobile messages in unsupported formats

ABSTRACT

The present invention is directed to methods of and systems for converting data that is in a format unsupported by a recipient device into images that are supported and can thus be accurately rendered by the recipient device. Thus, recipient devices, such as mobile phones and text messengers, all of which are able to display images, are all able to render characters in languages not supported by the recipient device. A method of the present invention converts data for display on a receiving device configured to accurately render data in one or more supported formats. The method includes determining whether a first format of the data is a supported format, and automatically converting the data into a second format supported by the second device if the first format is not a supported format. Preferably, the first format is defined by a character set and the second format is a binary image format.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This patent application is a continuation of and claims priority to aco-pending U.S. Non-provisional application Ser. No. 11/603,367 entitled“METHOD OF AND SYSTEM FOR DISPLAYING MOBILE MESSAGES IN UNSUPPORTEDFORMATS” filed on Nov. 21, 2006, which claims priority to U.S.Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/739,141, filed Nov. 22, 2005,entitled “MOBILE TEXT2IMAGE (T21) MESSAGING SERVICE,” and Ser. No.60/750,941, filed Dec. 16, 2005, entitled “MOBILE MULTIMEDIA MESSAGINGSERVICE VIRTUAL DELIVER (MMS-VD),” all of which are hereby incorporatedby reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to processing mobile messages. Morespecifically, this invention relates to translating messages so thatthey can be properly displayed on a receiving device.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Messaging systems are popular tools for today's mobile society. Manyusers exchange text and other messages, which can be composed and readon small text messengers, often found on mobile telephones. Becausemobile telephones and other messaging devices are portable, users areable to exchange text and other messages wherever they may be.

Mobile phones and other text messengers have several limitations. Forone, these devices can display only a limited number of character sets.As one example, a mobile telephone communicating using Short MessageService (“SMS”) is configured to display English language charactersonly. That is, the mobile phone has installed on it a platform thatsupports only English-language characters. Thus, when the mobile phonereceives a message in Chinese characters, the message cannot be properlydisplayed.

FIG. 1 shows a prior art system 100 that includes a mobile phone 101coupled to a message sever 115. The message server 115 is coupled over awide area network 116, such as the Internet, to another mobile phone130. The mobile phone 101 is used to compose and send a message 105 inChinese characters. The message server 115 receives the message 105 andtransmits it over the wide area network 116 to the mobile phone 130. Themobile phone 130 is not configured to display Chinese characters. Thus,when the mobile phone receives and tries to display the message 105, itinstead displays a message 111 of characters that indicate that themessage 105 cannot be properly displayed.

One solution is to store on the mobile phone font packages that containcharacters and fonts of other languages. In the above example, a fontpackage that contains Chinese character fonts must be installed on orotherwise made available to the mobile phone 130. This solution isexpensive, requires additional memory, which may not be available onportable devices, and does not scale well. Moreover, each individualmobile phone must be customized for each user.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention discloses a method of and a system for accuratelyrendering characters on a device, even when the device does not supportthe character set. The present invention is thus advantageous formessages delivered internationally, such as when the message is composedin a foreign language that is unsupported by or incompatible with arecipient's mobile device.

In a first aspect of the present invention, a method is directed toconverting data for display on a receiving device configured toaccurately render data in one or more supported formats. The methodincludes determining whether a first format of the data is a supportedformat and automatically converting the data into a second formatsupported by the second device if the first format is not a supportedformat. Preferably, the first format is defined by a character set andthe second format is a binary image format such as Device-independentBitmap format, Graphics Interchange Format (“GIF”), Portable DocumentFormat (“PDF”), Joint Photographic Experts Group (“JPEG”) format,Portable Networks Graphics (“PNG”) format, and Tagged Image File Format(“TIFF). Preferably, the character set is an English font, a Chinesefont, a Korean font, a Japanese font, a Spanish font, a Cyrillic font, aBaltics font, to name only a few fonts.

The method also includes wirelessly transmitting the message in thefirst format from the sending device. The receiving device can be anynumber of devices, mobile or otherwise, including a cell phone, a textmessenger, a pager, and a personal digital assistant.

Preferably, the data is converted from the first format to the secondformat before the message is received on the receiving device.

In one embodiment, the method also includes storing the message in asupported format on a storage node, generating a notification alertcontaining access information for accessing the message on the storagenode, and transmitting the notification alert to the receiving device.The access information includes a user name and a one-time passcode.

The data in the first format is part of a Short Message Service message.Alternatively, the data in the first format is part of a MultimediaMessage Service message. In one embodiment, the message in a supportedformat stored on the storage node is a Multimedia Message ServiceMessage and the notification alert is a Short Message Service message.

In one embodiment, determining whether the first format is a supportedformat includes comparing an identifier of a sending device with anidentifier of the receiving device. The identifiers of the sending andreceiving devices can be international area codes, domains, or otheridentifiers.

In a second aspect of the present invention, a method of processing amulti-part message includes converting a portion of the multi-partmessage into a format supported for display on a receiving device andcombining the converted portion with other portions of the multi-partmessage to form a converted message for display on the receiving device.The multi-part message includes text, multimedia, binary, and anycombination of these. In one embodiment, the multi-part message is anemail message, such as a Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (“MIME”)message or a Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (“SMIL”)message.

The method also includes using an identifier of a sending device and anidentifier of the receiving device to determine whether to convert theportion of a multi-part message into a format supported for display onthe receiving device. In one embodiment, the identifier of the sendingdevice and the identifier of the receiving device are country codes.

In a third aspect of the present invention, a message hub is used toforwarding messages to recipient devices. The message hub includes aconversion unit for converting portions of a message from a first formatthat cannot be accurately rendered on a recipient device to a secondformat that can be accurately rendered on the recipient device.Preferably, the conversion unit is a text-to-image converter, and theimage format is Device-Independent Bitmap format, GIF, PDF, JPEG, PNG,or TIFF.

In one embodiment, the text-to-image converter includes a comparator fordetermining whether to convert the portions of the message. Thedetermination is based on a comparison between an identifier of asending device and an identifier of the recipient device. The identifierof the sending device and the identifier of the recipient devices arecountry codes or domains. The text-to-image converter also includes oneor more character databases. Each character database maps unsupportedcharacters to corresponding images in one or more fonts.

The message hub also includes one or more of an SMTP/MM4 Gateway, aShort Message Service Gateway, and a Multimedia Message Service Gateway,all for receiving messages. In one embodiment, the message hub alsoincludes a storage unit coupled to the conversion unit and configured tostore messages in a supported format. In another embodiment, the messagehub also includes a notification and access module coupled to theconversion unit and configured to generate and transmit a notificationalert for accessing one or more stored messages.

Preferably, the conversion unit and notification and access module aretogether configured to receive a Short Message Service messagecontaining data in the first format, generate a Multimedia MessageService message containing the data in the second format, store theMultimedia Message Service message on the storage unit, and generate thenotification alert as a Short Message Service message. The notificationalert includes information for accessing a stored message, such as auser name and a one-time password.

The recipient device is any one of a text messenger, a cell phone, apager, and a personal digital assistant.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a prior art system showing a mobile device sending a textmessage composed of foreign-language characters and a recipient deviceunable to accurately render the text message because it does not supportthe foreign-language characters.

FIG. 2 shows a system in accordance with the present invention in whicha mobile device sends the text message in FIG. 1, and the recipientdevice accurately renders the text message.

FIGS. 3A and 3B shows the format of the text message generated on thesending device and the format of the corresponding message displayed onthe recipient device, both of FIG. 2, in accordance with the presentinvention.

FIG. 4 shows the steps of a process for generating a message in a formatthat can be displayed on the recipient device of FIG. 2, in accordancewith the present invention.

FIG. 5 shows more detailed steps of a process for generating a messagein a format that can be displayed on the recipient device of FIG. 2, inaccordance with the present invention.

FIG. 6A shows a container for the message on the sending device in FIG.2;

FIG. 6B shows a container for the corresponding message on the recipientdevice of FIG. 2.

FIGS. 7A and 7B show specific data used for the containers 6A and 6B,respectively.

FIG. 8 shows the steps of a process for generating an image filecorresponding to unsupported characters, in accordance with the presentinvention.

FIG. 9 is a table containing entries that indicate how and for whichmessages unsupported characters are converted into corresponding imagefiles in accordance with the 2 present invention.

FIG. 10 shows a font database of images of characters in accordance withthe present invention.

FIGS. 11A and B show elements in data structures used in conjunctionwith the table shown in FIG. 9.

FIG. 12 is an SMS message for retrieving an MMS message that contains animage corresponding to unsupported characters, in accordance with thepresent invention.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram for illustrating the components of a systemand a sequence of steps for storing and accessing an MMS message inaccordance with the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a more detailed block diagram of the components of themessage server shown in FIG. 13.

FIG. 15 shows the steps of a process for receiving and convertingmessages from different sending devices, in accordance with the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The present invention is directed to a method of and a system forproperly rendering text messages, such as those communicated using ShortMessage Service (“SMS”) or Multimedia Message Service (“MMS”), to nameonly two services. In accordance with the present invention, textcomposed on a sending device in a language not supported by a receivingdevice is accurately rendered on the receiving device. Preferably, thetext is converted to a binary image, which can be properly displayed onthe receiving device. Advantageously, the receiving device does not haveto be reconfigured with a font package that supports the language of theoriginal text message. Text messages can thus be exchanged betweeninternational users who exchange messages using different messageservers that support different languages. Embodiments of the presentinvention are thus able to be used by mobile operators and others whosupport message servers and mobile messaging.

FIG. 2 shows a system 150 in accordance with the present invention. Inall of the figures that follow, like-numbered elements refer to the sameelement. The system 150 includes the mobile phone 101 coupled to amessage server 117. The message server 117 is coupled to the mobilephone 130 over the wide area network 120. As shown in FIG. 2, themessage 105 composed on the mobile phone 101 is accurately rendered onthe mobile phone 130, even though the mobile phone 130 is not configuredto display Chinese language characters, such as those in the message105. As explained in more detail below, the message 105 on the mobilephone 101 is displayed as Chinese characters according to a characterencoding scheme, such as the Chinese National Standard GB2312 or Big5encoding, and the message 105′ is displayed on the mobile phone 130 asan image, which can be rendered independent of the languages supportedby the mobile phone 130.

FIGS. 3A and 3B show message blocks 200 and 250 for the messages 105 and105′ in FIG. 2. The message block 200 is the container for the message105 that is composed on the mobile phone 101. The message block containsa Header block 201 containing header information, a label block 205containing the identifier “Text,” and a data block 207 containing thetext message 105. The Header block 201 contains, among other things, atelephone number or other identifier of the mobile phone 101, atelephone number or other identifier of the mobile phone 130, and thelength of the text message in the block 207.

The message block 250 is the container for the message 105′ that isreceived from the mobile phone 101 and displayed on the mobile phone130. The message block 250 also contains a Header block 251, a labelblock 255, and a data block 257. The label block 255 contains the label“Image,” which identifies the data in the data block 257 as image data.The data in the data block 257 will thus be rendered on the mobile phone130 as an image, and not as a sequence of Chinese characters, charactersthat the mobile phone 130 is not configured to render accurately. Thus,mobile phones configured to display images are able to displaycharacters in languages not supported by the mobile phones. The imagedata contained in the data block 257 can be in any number of formatsincluding Device-Independent Bitmap format, Graphics Interchange Format(“GIF”), Portable Document Format (“PDF”), Joint Photographic ExpertsGroup (“JPEG”) format, Portable Networks Graphics (“PNG”) format, orTagged Image File Format (“TIFF”), to name only a few formats.

The containers 200 and 250 are shown as similar merely to simplify thediscussion. As explained in more detail below, the container 200 can bein one format and the container 250 in another format. As one example,the original message is an SMS message. The container 200 is in the SMSformat and the container 250 in the MMS format. Referring to FIG. 2, inthis example the message server 117 is an SMS server. As anotherexample, the original message is an MMS message, and the container 200is in the MMS format. Again referring to FIG. 2, the message server 117is an MMS server.

Referring to FIG. 2, the text 105 is able to be converted to the image105′ at one or more locations. Preferably, the text 105 is converted tothe image 105′ at the message server 117. Alternatively, the text 105 isconverted to the image 105′ on the mobile phone 101, on the mobile phone130, or at some node between the two.

FIG. 4 shows the steps of a process 300 for displaying messages onmobile phones and other devices in accordance with the presentinvention. In the step 301, a message that has been composed on a firstmobile device in a first language and transmitted to a second mobiledevice is received on a message server. In the step 305, the processdetermines whether the second device can accurately render the message;that is, whether the second device can “support” the first language. Ifthe second device supports the first language, the process proceeds tothe step 309, where the message is transmitted to the second device. Ifthe second device cannot support the first language, the processproceeds to the step 307, where the message is converted into a formatsupported by the second device. Preferably, the format is a binaryimage. From the step 307, the process proceeds to the step 309, and thenon to the step 311, where the process ends.

As used below, the phrase “supported language” refers to a character setand font that can be accurately rendered on a recipient device, such asa mobile phone or text messenger, to name only a few devices. The phrase“unsupported language” refers to a character set that cannot beaccurately rendered on a recipient device. The phrases “sending device”and “originating device” both refer to the device on which the messageis composed. The phrase “recipient device” refers to the device to whichthe message is sent. Thus, preferably, data is identified as supportedor unsupported in relation with the recipient device.

The examples used so far show a message that includes only text.Embodiments of the present invention are able to be used with messagesthat contain multiple parts, such as Multipurpose Internet MailExtensions (“MIME”) messages. A message can be processed using theinvention even if it includes any combination of supported text,unsupported text, as well as audio and other executable files that canbe played or rendered on the recipient mobile phone without beingconverted to an image file or other format supported by a recipientdevice.

FIG. 5 shows steps of a process 400 for converting a multi-part messagein accordance with the present invention. In this embodiment, only thoseparts that must be converted for display on a recipient device arechanged; all other parts are left unchanged. The process works byparsing the message, creating a “destination” container or template fora new message, and copying both converted and unconverted data to thecontainer. The new container, containing any converted images, are thentransmitted to the recipient.

Referring to FIG. 5, in the step 401, a multi-part message is received.In the step 403, the next part of the message is parsed and, in the step405, the process determines whether the part contains text. If the partdoes not contain text, the process proceeds to the step 411, where thepart, including its header, is copied to an output container, and thenproceeds on to the step 417. If, in the step 405, the process determinesthat the part does contain text, the process proceeds to the step 407,where it determines whether the text includes unsupported language. Ifthe process determines that the text includes unsupported language, theprocess proceeds to the step 409; otherwise, it proceeds to the step411. In the steps 409, 413, and 415, respectively, the process convertsthe unsupported language to image data, generates a header that the datais image, and copies the new header and image file to the outputcontainer. From the step 415, the process proceeds to the step 417,where it determines whether there are more parts to the message. Ifthere are more parts, the process loops back to the step 403; otherwise,the process proceeds to the step 419, where it updates the topmostheader (e.g., field 501′ in FIG. 6B), such as by changing the lengthfield if the total length of the message has changed. Next in the step421, the process transmits the message and, in the step 423, the processends.

FIG. 6A shows a container 500 for a message containing both supportedand unsupported data, before conversion using the present invention.FIG. 6B shows a container 500′ for a message corresponding to themessage in the container 500, after the unsupported data has beenconverted to an image file in accordance with the present invention. Thecontainer 500 includes a top header 501 (“Top Header 0”), a sub header503 and associated unsupported text data 505, a sub header 507 andassociated supported data (an executable binary file) 509, and a subheader 511 and associated supported text data 513. Referring to FIG. 6B,the container 500′ is generated from the container 500 so that theunsupported text data is properly rendered on the mobile phone 130 ofFIG. 1. The container 500′ includes a top header 501′ (“Top header 0′”),a sub header 503′ and an associated image file 505′ of the unsupportedtext data 505, the sub header 507 and the associated supported data 509,and the sub header 511 and the associated supported text data 513.

FIG. 7A shows, for example, the container 500 with specific data. Theunsupported text data 505 is shown as Chinese characters, the supportedexecutable binary data 509 is shown as an audio file, and the supportedtext data 513 is shown as Arabic numerals. Similarly, FIG. 7B shows thecontainer 500′ with specific data. The Chinese characters 505 in FIG. 7Ahave been replaced with an image 505′ file corresponding to the Chinesecharacters, the supported executable binary data 509 and the supportedtext data 513, both shown in the container 500, remain unchanged.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that binary images are able tobe stored in a message container in many ways. As one example, an entirebinary image of the unsupported text is compressed or otherwisetranslated into a format suitable for transmission to a recipient mobiletelephone.

Unsupported text can be converted to images in any number of ways. FIG.8 show the steps of a process for 600 for converting unsupported text orother data to a corresponding image. First, in the step 601, the processreads a character in the sequence of unsupported characters. In the step603, the process looks up the image of the character in the fontdatabase and, in the step 605, appends the image to a final image file.In the step 607, the process determines whether there are any morecharacters in the message to convert. If there are more characters, theprocess loops back to the step 601; otherwise, the process proceeds tothe step 609. In the step 609, the process converts the final image filein a format suitable for messaging. As explained above, this format canbe a file compressed for efficient transmission over a network. Next, inthe step 611, the process places the converted image file in the messagebody and updates the header of the message body to correctly identifythe converted image file. The process ends in the step 613.

FIG. 9 is a table 700 indicating languages supported by a particularrecipient mobile phone in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention. Referring to FIGS. 2 and 7, the table 700 containsinformation used to determine whether the mobile phone 101 and themobile phone 130 use message servers identified by country codes forcountries that share a common language. For example, if the mobile phone101 uses a message server identified by country code corresponding toChina and the mobile phone 130 uses a message server identified by acountry code corresponding to the United States, text in a messagecomposed on the mobile phone 101 is converted to an image file beforebeing displayed on the mobile phone 130. Alternatively, if the mobilephone 101 uses a message server identified by the country codecorresponding to England and the mobile phone 130 uses a message serveridentified by the 20 United States, text in a message composed on themobile phone 101 is not converted to an image file before beingdisplayed on the mobile phone 130.

The table 700 contains a first column labeled “From Prefix,” a secondcolumn labeled “To Prefix,” a third column labeled “Charset,” and afourth column labeled “Originating Country Name.” The table 700 has rows701, 705, and 707. The exemplary row 701 has an element 701 A in thecolumn “From Prefix,” with the value “86”; an element 701 B in thecolumn “To Prefix,” with the value “447”; an element 701 C in the column“Charset,” with the value “utf-8”; and an element 701 D in the column“Originating Country Name,” with the value “China.” The values of theelements in the row 701 thus indicate that when a message from theinternational area code “86” (element 701 A), the international areacode for China, is sent to a mobile phone with the international areacode 447 (element 701 B), the international area code for mobile phonesin Great Britain, if the text is using the utf-8 character set (element701 C), then it will be converted into one or more images using theChinese TrueType font (element 701 D). A message server in accordancewith the present invention will thus use the values in table 700 tocheck the originating device's corresponding are code with the recipientdevice's corresponding area code, to determine whether to convert anyunsupported text data to an image file.

FIG. 10 is a font database 710 (e.g., a “character-to-image” database)used to convert unsupported characters to corresponding images inaccordance with the present invention. The database 710 contains therows 711, 713, and 715 to 717. The database also contains the columns720 to 721. In operation, a process in accordance with the presentinvention uses a text-to-image converter to convert an unsupportedcharacter to an image. The process determines the character and font ofthe converted imaged. Thus, for example, if it is determined that asequence of unsupported characters in a text message are to be convertedto an image in one language and font, a specific database of thelanguage characters and a specific row of the database containingcharacters of a particular font are used. Referring to FIG. 10, thedatabase contains images of characters for the Chinese language. Thefirst row 711 contains Chinese characters in a first font, the secondrow 713 contains corresponding characters in a second font, etc. Thus,the process determines the font of the image and uses the correspondingrow in the database 710 to generate the unsupported characters in thetext or other message. In one embodiment, a character and a font areindices into a character-to-image database.

It will be appreciated that a separate database, such as the database710, is included for each unsupported language converted in accordancewith the present invention. Thus, for example, a system in accordancewith the present invention that converts characters in two unsupportedlanguages, will have two corresponding databases, one for each language.

FIGS. 11A and B show formats for different originating messages,including information used to determine language identifiers for both asending mobile phone and for a recipient mobile phone. FIG. 11A showsone example of a format for an SMS Submit Protocol Description Unit(“PDU”) 750. The SMS Submit PDU 750 contains fields 751, 753, and 755.The field 751 contains the recipient's phone number (includinginternational area code). The field 753 contains the service centernumber of the sender's SMS center, which will forward the message to therecipient in accordance with embodiments of the present invention. Thefield 755 contains the original text message. As one example, referringto table 700 and FIG. 10A, if a message using the SMS Submit PDU formatwere sent from a Chinese originator to a user of a mobile phone in theUK, the international area code contained in the element 751 is “447”and the international area code contained in the element 753 is “86.”

It will be appreciated that information other than international areacodes are able to be used in accordance with other embodiments of thepresent invention, information such as Mobile Service IntegratedServices Digital Numbers (MSlSDNs), Internet Protocol (IP) addressescorresponding to the servers for the sending and recipient mobilephones, and the like. It will also be appreciated that messages are ableto be transmitted in accordance with the present invention, usingservices other than SMS. FIG. 11B, for example, shows a MultimediaMessage Service (“MMS”) message 760, such as one composed on andtransmitted from a mobile phone. The message 760 includes a header 765and a body 780. The header 765 includes a “To” field 761 and a “From”field 763. The “To” field 761 contains address information, such as afirst domain associated with the recipient's mobile phone number. The“From” field 763 contains address information, such as a second domainassociated with the sender's mobile phone number. The body 780 includes,among other things, a content descriptor 767 for the data 769. As oneexample, the content descriptor 767 indicates that the data 769 is text.The information in the fields 761 and 763 are able to be compared todetermine whether the text 769 in the data field 769 is to be converted.For example, the domain in the field 763 indicates that the sendingmobile phone corresponds to a domain in China, and the domain in thefield 761 indicates that the recipient mobile phone corresponds to adomain in the United States. Accordingly, the text in the field 769 isunsupported, and conversion is performed in accordance with the presentinvention.

In accordance with the present invention, a user on a sending device isable to send messages using SMS, MMS, email, and other types ofmessages. In one embodiment, an SMS message containing unsupportedcharacters is converted to a corresponding MMS message that contains animage of the unsupported characters. The MMS message is stored on amessage server and an SMS message containing information for retrievingthe MMS message is sent to the intended recipient device. Thus, if therecipient is busy or her device is turned off, she can retrieve the MMSmessage at a later time. In one embodiment, the SMS contains a URL ofthe message server, a user name, and a one-time password for retrievingthe MMS message. FIG. 12 shows an SMS message 850 containing informationfor retrieving an MMS message. The SMS 850 contains a URL(“portal@web.com”), a user name “TimSmith”, and a one-time password“HuRyUPP.” In other embodiments, a token is stored on the recipient'smobile phone so that when a URL is accessed, the recipient isautomatically logged on to access the MMS message.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram of a system 900 for accessing a stored MMSmessage in accordance with the present invention. A sender using adevice 905 on a Public Land Mobile Network (“PLMN”) 901 composes anoriginal message intended for a recipient on a device 935 on a PLMN 930.The device 905 transmits the original message to a conversion unit 915on a message server 910 as shown by the line labeled 1. The conversionunit 915 converts any unsupported text in the message to generate a newMMS message in accordance with the present invention and stores it at alocation 921 on a storage unit 920, as shown by the line labeled 2. Theconversion unit 915 then generates and sends to the device 935 accessinformation, as shown by the line labeled 3. A user on the device 935 isable to use the access information to log on to 2 the storage unit asshown by the line labeled 4A, using, for example, a Web portal, and thenretrieve the new MMS message, as shown by the line labeled 4B.

Referring to FIG. 13, those skilled in the art will recognize that thedevice 905 can be many different types of devices. For example, thedevice 905 can be a mobile phone communicating with the message server910 over MMS Centers (MMSCs), SMS Centers (SMSCs), or email severs,using a variety of interfaces and protocols including, but not limitedto, MM4, HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Simple Mail TransferProtocol (SMTP), to name only a few interfaces and protocols. Similarly,the device 935 can be a mobile phone communicating with the messageserver 910 over MMSCs, SMSCs, or email severs.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram of the message server 910 of FIG. 13 in moredetail. The message server 910 includes an SMS Gateway 941 coupled overchannels 950A to one or more SMSCs (not shown), an MMS Gateway 943coupled over channels 950B to one or more MMSCs (not shown), and anSMTP/MM4 Gateway 945 coupled over channels 950C to one or more emailservers (not shown). The MMS Gateway 943 is coupled to the SMTP/MM4Gateway 915, a Text Notification and Web Portal 947, and a Text-to-ImageConverter 949. The Text-to-Image converter 949 contains one or morecharacter databases 960. Each of the character databases 960 mapsunsupported characters to corresponding images in one or more fonts. TheText Notification and Web Portal 947 and the Text-to-Image Converter 949are both coupled to the Storage Unit 920.

In operation, messages from SMSCs are routed from the SMS Gateway 941,to the MMS Gateway 943 where a corresponding MMS message is formed usingthe Text-to-Image Converter 949. The corresponding MMS message is storedin the Storage Unit 920 and access information is generated and sent inan SMS message to a user using the Text Notification and Web Portal 947.The user then uses the access information to retrieve the correspondingMMS message through the Text Notification and Web Portal 947.

When a sender composes and transmits an MMS message, the message istransmitted through the MMS Gateway 943 in a similar manner. And when asender transmits a regular email message, the message is similarlytransmitted through the SMTP/MM4 Gateway 945.

As explained above, the present invention is able to be used to convertcharacters in an unsupported language when the characters are includedas part of an SMS message, an MMS message, a SMIL message, a regularemail message, and many other types of message. FIG. 15 shows the stepsof a process 1000 for converting unsupported characters in differenttypes of messages in accordance with the present invention. To simplifythe discussion that follows, the process 1000 is configured to supportthe conversion of unsupported characters contained only in MMS and SMSmessages. It will be appreciated that unsupported characters in othertypes of messages are able to be converted in accordance with thepresent invention.

First, in the step 1001, a message composed on a first mobile phone istransmitted to and received on a message server in accordance with thepresent invention. In the step 1003, the process determines whether thesender is a subscriber to the conversion system of the presentinvention. If the sender is not a subscriber, the process proceeds tothe step 1027, where the message is transmitted to the recipient,unconverted. If the sender is a subscriber, the process proceeds to thestep 1005. In the step 1005, the process determines whether the messagecontains any unsupported characters. If it does, the process proceeds tothe step 1007; otherwise, the process proceeds to the step 1027.

In the step 1007, the process determines whether the message is an MMSmessage. If the message is an MMS message, the process proceeds to thestep 1009. In the step 1009, a converted MMS message is generated andcopies to an output container if the MMS message contains unsupportedcharacters, or the original message is copied to the output container ifthe MMS message does not contain unsupported characters. The processproceeds to the step 1011 where the output container is transmitted tothe intended recipient, and proceeds to the optional step 1013, in whicha status of the transmission (e.g., “successful,” “message converted,”“error,” etc.) is sent to the sender. The process then ends in the step1031.

If, in the step 1007, it is determined that the message is not an MMSmessage, the process proceeds to the step 1015, in which the processdetermines whether the message is an SMS message. If the message is anSMS message, the process proceeds to the step 1021, in which a new MMSmessage is generated to include any unsupported data in an image file.From the step 1023, the process proceeds to the step 1023, in which thenew MMS message is stored on a message server, and proceeds to the step1025, in which an SMS message containing access information to the newMMS message is transmitted to the recipient device. From the step 1025,the process proceeds to the step 1013.

If, in the step 1015, it is determined that the message is not an SMSmessage, the process proceeds to the step 1017, in which an error statusmessage is generated. indicating that the system is not configured toconvert the type of message sent by the sender. The process proceeds tothe step 1019, in which the error message is transmitted to the sender,and then on to the step 1013.

Embodiments of the present invention are able to convert text orcharacters in any language to images that can be accurately rendered byany device capable of rendering images.

Thus, embodiments of the present invention are able to render charactersin Spanish, Nordics, Korean, Greek, Simplified Chinese, TraditionalChinese, Portuguese, Hindi, Turkish, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai,Baltics, Russian, Celtics, Cyrillic and French, to name only a fewlanguages.

Embodiments of the present invention can also be sued to generatedetailed reports of messages that have been converted and can chargecustomers accordingly.

It will also be appreciated that devices other than mobile phones areable to be used to composed, transmit, and receive messages inaccordance with the invention. Other devices include, but are notlimited to, text messengers, pagers, and personal digital assistants.

It will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art that othermodifications may be made to the embodiments without departing from thespirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of converting a message transmitted froma sending device for display on a receiving device comprising: receivinga message transmitted from a sending device to a receiving device, themessage being a Short Message Service (SMS) or a Multimedia MessagingService (MMS) message, the message having a header block, a label block,and a data block, wherein the label block indicates that the messagecontains text data and the data block contains the text data;identifying a text data in the data block of the message; determining afirst character set of the text data in the Short Message Service (SMS)or a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) message; identifying a secondcharacter set supported by the receiving device; comparing the firstcharacter set against the second character set to determine whether thefirst character set matches the second character set; and responsive todetermining that the first character set does not match the secondcharacter set, generating an image depicting the text data; andgenerating a converted message containing the image, the label block ofthe converted message indicating that the message contains image data.2. The method of claim 1, wherein the image has a binary image format.3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first character set or the secondcharacter set is selected from the group consisting of an English font,a Chinese font, a Korean font, a Japanese font, a Spanish font, aCyrillic font, and a Baltics font.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein aformat of the image is selected from the group consisting ofDevice-Independent Bitmap format, Graphics Interchange Format, PortableDocument Format, Joint Photographic Experts Group format, PortableNetworks Graphics format, and Tagged Image File Format.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the receiving device is any one of a cell phone, a textmessenger, a pager, and a personal digital assistant.
 6. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: storing the converted message on a storagenode for retrieval by the receiving device; generating a notificationalert containing access information for accessing the message on thestorage node; and transmitting the notification alert to the receivingdevice.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the access informationcomprises a user name and a passcode.
 8. The method of claim 6, whereinthe converted message stored on the storage node is a Multimedia MessageService message and the notification alert is a Short Message Servicemessage.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the converted message is aMultimedia Message Service message.
 10. The method of claim 1, whereinat least the first character set or the second character set isidentified based an international area code or a domain associated witha mobile phone number of the receiving device.
 11. The method of claim1, wherein the step of generating the converted message comprises thesteps of: creating an output container for the converted message;generating a new header for the label block, the header indicating thatdata within the output container is the image data; and copying the newheader and the image to the output container.
 12. A message hub forforwarding Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Messaging Service(MMS) messages from a sending device to a recipient device, the messagehub having a non-transitory computer-readable medium having storedthereon computer-executable instructions for converting a messagetransmitted from a sending device to a receiving device, theinstructions comprising: receiving a message transmitted from a sendingdevice to a receiving device, the message being a Short Message Service(SMS) or a Multimedia Messaging Service (MIMS) message, the messagehaving a header block, a label block, and a data block, wherein thelabel block indicates that the message contains text data and the datablock contains the text data; identifying a text data in the data blockof the message; determining a first character set of the text data inthe Short Message Service (SMS) or a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)message; identifying a second character set supported by the receivingdevice; comparing the first character set against the second characterset to determine whether the first character set matches the secondcharacter set; and responsive to determining that the first characterset does not match the second character set, generating an imagedepicting the text data; and generating a converted message containingthe image, the label block of the converted message indicating that themessage contains image data.
 13. The message hub of claim 12, furthercomprising a text-to-image converter.
 14. The message hub of claim 13,wherein the text-to-image converter is configured to generate an imagein Device-Independent Bitmap format, Graphics Interchange Format,Portable Document Format, Joint Photographic Experts Group format,Portable Networks Graphics format, or Tagged Image File Format.
 15. Themessage hub of claim 12, wherein the image has a binary image format.16. The message hub of claim 12, wherein the first character set or thesecond character set is selected from the group consisting of an Englishfont, a Chinese font, a Korean font, a Japanese font, a Spanish font, aCyrillic font, and a Baltics font.
 17. The message hub of claim 12,wherein a format of the image is selected from the group consisting ofDevice-Independent Bitmap format, Graphics Interchange Format, PortableDocument Format, Joint Photographic Experts Group format, PortableNetworks Graphics format, and Tagged Image File Format.
 18. The messagehub of claim 12, wherein the receiving device is any one of a cellphone, a text messenger, a pager, and a personal digital assistant. 19.The message hub of claim 12, the instructions further comprising:storing the converted message on a storage node for retrieval by thereceiving device; generating a notification alert containing accessinformation for accessing the message on the storage node; andtransmitting the notification alert to the receiving device.
 20. Themessage hub of claim 19, wherein the access information comprises a username and a passcode.
 21. The message hub of claim 19, wherein theconverted message stored on the storage node is a Multimedia MessageService message and the notification alert is a Short Message Servicemessage.
 22. The message hub of claim 12, wherein the converted messageis a Multimedia Message Service message.
 23. The message hub of claim12, wherein at least the first character set or the second character setis identified based an international area code or a domain associatedwith a mobile phone number of the receiving device.
 24. The message hubof claim 12, wherein the instruction of generating the converted messagefurther comprises the following instructions: creating an outputcontainer for the converted message; generating a new header for thelabel block, the header indicating that data within the output containeris the image data; and copying the new header and the image to theoutput container.